Fight for Your Future.

If there’s one thing I've learned this year, it’s that the sting of failure is very real. However, I quickly learned that the endurance that develops through failure is very real as well.

Since the beginning of this year, I've struggled with failure. There were many responsibilities that I had to take care of and deadlines that I had to meet, yet nothing seemed to be working out. I didn’t meet any of my deadlines, and the responsibilities that I was assigned seemed too much for me to bear. I felt like God was nowhere to be found. Night after night, I cried and cried and cried.

God, I need you to help me!!

I need you to show up!!

For months, I felt the weight of failure bearing down on me, and I couldn’t take it any longer. The discouragement and disappointment that I had nurtured in my heart made me lose my desire to do anything. I no longer wanted to write. I didn’t want to do any research. I just felt completely defeated. I felt like a failure. Day after day, I walked about in a daze, not knowing what to do, and not knowing where I was going.

I felt purposeless.

After time passed and I realized that nothing was changing about my situation, I knew that I needed to release the burden to God. I couldn’t waste any more of my time wallowing in self-pity, so I got into His presence. Here, I told Him that I felt like a failure and that I didn’t know if I had the strength to persevere. I told Him everything that had been accumulating in my heart since the beginning of the year, and like the good Father He is, He responded. In that moment, He taught me a very valuable lesson- something that has carried me and given me hope since then. He reminded me that failure and disappointment are a part of life.

On this journey, we will face many moments when things won’t work out the way we had hoped. Sometimes, we may not get the job that we were hoping for. In other instances, we might not be accepted into our schools of choice. The point is that failure is normal. When you fail, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong with you. You aren’t less capable or less worthy. It’s a part of life! We all experience the sting of failure in life, but God has taught me that it's not about experiencing failure, it’s about what we do about it.

Do we wallow in self-pity and give up on our dreams, or will we trust in God and fight for our futures?

Failure taught me how to fight. It taught me to persevere and depend completely on God to accomplish my goals. I can say with all confidence that failure is probably the best thing that has happened to me this year because it has strengthened me in ways I never could have imagined. It has made me bolder and it has pushed me closer to God. It has taught me to push myself- to keep reading and keep writing no matter how defeated I felt. Failure has taught me to speak the word of God over my life and make that my highest authority. It taught me how to fight for the future that I want.

I pray that you won’t allow the failure of your past to determine what you can or cannot accomplish in your present. You can do it. God is with you. Get up and get moving.

Fight for your future!